Friday, October 4, 2013

"Escalation of Force": We're All Iraqis Now

“The wicked flee where none gives pursuit,” the Book of
Proverbs instructs us. In similar fashion, an imperial elite that cultivates
hostility on a global scale lives under the perpetual and well-deserved
expectation of retaliation – which is why it perceives everybody as a potential
threat. This is why a confused young mother who makes a traffic error in
Washington, D.C. faces summary execution – and the killers will be lauded
for their supposed “heroism.”

As with so many other facets of the world-historic crime
called “Operation Iraqi Freedom,” the routine slaughter of
innocent Iraqis at traffic checkpoints was documented in war logs made public
by the heroic whistleblower then known as Private Bradley Manning.

In antiseptic language typical of bureaucratized killing
operations, those episodes were called “escalation of force” incidents. An
entry for October 26, 2005 describes how “a civilian vehicle approached and
ignored shouts[,] vehicle horn[,] and flashed lights. Unit fired one shotgun
round as a warning shot. Vehicle ignored warning and continued. Unit fired
13-15 rounds of 7.62 into the vehicle killing 2 children and wounding one child
and one female. 2 civ KIA [civilians killed in action], 2 civ WIA [civilians
wounded in action]….”

“I’m sure that these soldiers were doing a good job,”
insisted an anonymous official with US Central Command following the massacre of
ten Iraqis whose van was shelled at a checkpoint near Najaf. “It’s very
tragic, but they acted in an appropriate way.” This was “appropriate” because
the lives of U.S. soldiers were of immeasurably greater worth than those of the
Iraqis whom they were there to “liberate.” Besides, it was irresponsible of
Iraqis not to understand, and accommodate, the security concerns of the valiant
foreigners who had invaded their country.

“It may be argued that drivers should be more careful to
obey troops’ orders, but in the dark civilians can be as jumpy as soldiers,”
observed a report in the Guardian of London. “Unlike troops they have no
training or prior experience. They may
not be sure who the people with flashing lights are on the road ahead.”
(Emphasis added.)

It is entirely possible that after Miriam
Carey drove her car into a barricade outside the White House that
she didn’t immediately identify the armed men who surrounded her as police
officers. It is quite likely – and entirely understandable – that her first
impulse was to panic and flee. Her reaction was in some ways similar to that of
Iraqi civilians who hadn’t been told that anything other than immediate,
unquestioning submission to orders issued by foreign occupiers would provoke a
fatal response.

In Iraq, the official doctrine of “force protection”
dictated lethal pre-emption of any potential threat. An enhanced version of
that doctrine is in effect in the Imperial Capital, which is inhabited by
people whose unfathomable corruption is matched by an immeasurably vast sense
of entitlement – and coupled with a vague but insistent sense that at some
point their crimes will provoke retaliation. Since such people are unburdened
by conscience, they see nothing amiss in authorizing summary execution of
anybody who might pose some unspecified potential threat to their physical
safety.

The police directed their gunfire into oncoming traffic, heedless
of the possibility that they may kill or injure innocent Mundanes. Cleerdin and
his wife found themselves “inches from death,” and their experience was hardly
unique.

The actions of the police were “way beyond reckless,”
Cleerdin testified. “I couldn’t believe it…. It looked like every officer there
did not follow protocol in any way, shape, or form.”

Antonine Graham, who was driving the Lincoln Navigator on
that evening, had several narcotics-related offenses on his record and was
allegedly carrying marijuana and paraphernalia when he encountered the
checkpoint. He and his passenger, Jerry Melvin, were both shot multiple times
after a cop rammed their car to force it to stop. For seeking to avoid the
warrantless checkpoint, Graham was charged with ten counts of assault with a
deadly weapon on a government official and several other offenses.Because he was in a vehicle driven by Graham,
Melvin was initially charged with conspiracy to commit assault with a deadly
weapon.

How could it be otherwise? To those who presume to rule us, and
their costumed enforcers, we’re all Iraqis now.

Thank you so much!

On behalf of Korrin and our children, I want to express my deep and abiding gratitude to everyone who has made donations here at Pro Libertate. This means more to us than I can adequately express. As a journalist, I'm gratified to know that what I write is of value to you. As a husband and father, I am deeply grateful for your help in providing for my family -- especially in light of the fact that so many of you are in straits similar to our own. Thank you once again, and God bless.

More than that, the so-called "government shutdown" is nothing more than the Empire placing sanctions on the people of central North America.

The pattern is, the supposedly "elected" officials in the country don't do what the Empire wants. The Empire enforces sanctions against the people to make things painful for them, so that they will contact their representatives and demand that those reps capitulate to the dictates of the Empire.

Thus parks, monuments, sections of ocean, welfare payments, are closed, to cause the public the maximum pain.

Hmmm? I was always given the impression that Americans were rough, tough, individualists that don't take no crap from nobody. After all, didn't they single-handedly kick that Tojo's and Hitler's ass. Showed the VC who was boss. That Osama guy got his, too! They would never let their own government push them around. Right? Right? Riiight.

Rich:Those events you refer to were things that were done by Americans in the military who had orders from their government to do them. When it comes to American civilians--they are used to their government giving them orders to sit back, be oppressed, give up freedom, etc.